


Brand New Key

by AnnetheCatDetective



Series: Is This Love I'm Feeling [4]
Category: St. Elsewhere
Genre: A Fundamental Misundersanding of What Victor Is Into, Accidental Bondage, Everyone Could Use a Nap Honestly, Gen, past Jack/Nina
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-10-11 19:21:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17452793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnetheCatDetective/pseuds/AnnetheCatDetective
Summary: The thing I've been eager to get finished, Jack's take on the events of 'Cuffed'.





	Brand New Key

    Wayne Fiscus had promised-- promised-- that he had a copy of the medical book Jack needed. It wasn’t the usual textbook, had some information on a rare condition that he wanted to have down, because it was in his new patient’s chart, and he’d never thought he would need it, but against all odds, he needs to get his hands on it now, and after swearing up and down he had a book that covered the condition, Wayne couldn’t find it.

 

    Victor had come through for the both of them, and so with Pete spending the day with his in-laws, still in town after the funeral, Jack goes over to Victor’s with him after they get off work-- thankfully not one of those thirty-six hour shifts, Dr. Westphall hasn’t put him back on those yet, and Victor’s on call but he had a little time to spare.

 

    Victor lets him in, and he’s not really sure what he pictured. He didn’t really picture anything, particularly. If he was going to, it would be… more Californian, maybe. The place is spotless, it looks so clean he could practically do his job there, but it also looks like someone else decorated. The furniture might come with the place, the prints on the wall might have been given to him by someone. It just doesn’t seem quite colorful enough for him.

 

    “Hey, look, thanks. Fiscus told me he could lend me the book I needed, and then he didn’t have it--” He starts, and Victor is already nodding and rolling his eyes.

 

    “Because he left it here. You should charge him a deposit on him if he wants it back from you. It’s been sitting on my shelf for a month now and he never came back for it. I’ve already emptied a box of his stuff out of my apartment, I can’t imagine the state he must have left his old place in… I don’t know why he didn’t just get a storage unit.”

 

    “I think they frown on people living in those.” He jokes, but Victor looks at him with utter non-comprehension.

 

    “I meant for his stuff…” He shakes his head, with a little lost frown. A good guy, Victor, but… a little hopeless, in moments like these.

 

    “No, I know, it was-- Forget it, thanks for finding the book for me.” Jack shrugs it off. It’s the sort of thing that happens with Victor, and you just sort of have to move on, and Jack does, or at least he’s never made fun of him. He’s seen people tease him for it, seen Victor either get defensive or miss that as well, but Phil’s the only one who seems to have a talent for making those awkward moments disappear. Jack wishes he knew how, he just feels awkward as it is.

 

    He moves towards the couch while Victor heads over to pick the book up for him, and at least Victor doesn’t seem to feel awkward at all, Victor is chatty and cheerful, and so Jack can try to relax about it a little.

 

    “No problem. It’s just taking up space with me. You know, with how long ago I gave him the boot, I shouldn’t still be finding his crap… And the kitchen still hasn’t recovered! I thought it was bad when he was thoughtless, but then he tried to put away the dishes and I can’t even get into the drawer with the potato masher anymore…”

 

    “Tell us how you really feel. Hey, what’s this--” There’s a set of handcuffs down between the couch cushions. Which is… unexpected. Jack doesn’t recognize them as such at first, it’s just a glint of metal, he reaches down to retrieve it in case it’s something important that Victor might not want to lose, only for it to turn out to be handcuffs. “Did you know you have handcuffs in the sofa cushions? Or did he leave those, too?”

 

    “Oh…” Victor’s posture tightens, which is… interesting. He launches into a halting protest, and Jack tries to imagine. Well, not _tries_ , he can picture Victor Ehrlich in handcuffs without trying. Victor, with his need to please and his tendency to be cowed by anyone in a position of authority, he can picture that. “No-- Well-- I mean-- They’re not mine, either, but-- Look, just don’t play around with those, though, because I don’t have the--”

 

    He hears the ‘don’t’ a moment too late. He’d only been idly playing with them, and trying not to picture Victor in _just_ the handcuffs-- not a mental image that would do it for him. He’d slapped one of them onto his wrist in fun, but even with that ‘don’t’, the full terrible truth of his situation doesn’t dawn on him all at once.

 

    “Key.” Victor finishes, voice small, turning to look at him at last with a terrified expression Jack might laugh at under other circumstances.

 

    The full terrible truth of his situation hits him like a freight train.

 

    “What?”

 

    “I don’t have the key!” He yelps.

 

    “Open with ‘I don’t have the key’ next time!” Jack snaps. He can’t even feel bad about shouting a little-- why does this only happen with Victor? It’s not really his fault, but even so… even so. Jack can’t walk out of the apartment like this. How does he not have the key, in an apartment this neat?

 

    “Don’t mess around with handcuffs you find in someone else’s couch next time!” Victor whines. “I’ve got to get back to the hospital, I can’t, I can’t deal with this! I’m assisting Craig, if I’m late because I accidentally-- no, because a _coworker_ accidentally handcuffed _himself_!-- Oh, he’s gonna kill me!”

 

    “You can’t deal with this? I’m the one wearing the handcuffs! I have to pick up my kid from Nina’s folks’, and I can’t-- I can’t show up like this. I mean, do you understand that? How do you not have the key?” He asks, anger breaking, everything breaking. Nina’s folks… He feels terrible enough facing them, when he couldn’t even save their daughter, and now...

 

    “Roberta has the key. Roberta! Okay, no, okay, this-- I’ll call her. You just…”

 

    “Sit tight?”

 

    “I’ll call her. You didn’t have to fool around with them, you know!”

 

    “Yeah, I know.” Jack deflates a little, sitting on the sofa where he’d found the handcuffs. Possibly the place where Victor had used the handcuffs, but the less he thinks about that, the better.

 

    These are… real, sturdy handcuffs. Not like The Cuffs had been, that gag wedding gift from one of Nina’s friends, flimsy, fuzzy plastic that they’d used until they broke them.

 

    _He_ broke them.

 

    He’d liked them, he’s not sure if they were supposed to like them or just laugh at them, but he had. He wasn’t thinking about The Cuffs when he snapped these onto one wrist-- he doesn’t think he’d have done it if he was, it’s not really… He wasn’t thinking about _anything_ when he’d done it.

 

    Once The Cuffs broke, it was over. Nina had laughed and teased him about snapping the chain, which was also plastic, and said she was sorry to see them go, but they never bought another pair, and he wouldn’t have been able to bring himself to buy something sturdier, even if he’d wanted… Maybe he’d wanted. Sometimes, in idle moments, because he liked it. Not just the act of wearing them, but the way that she’d paid attention to him when they brought them out, the way things shifted. Not like she suddenly became some kind of dominatrix about it, nothing like that at all. Things between them were still just fun and playful and good, more that… More that she looked at him a kind of way, a little more. Teased him more. Took charge in a quieter kind of way, there was nothing real kinky about it, even The Cuffs were too silly to take serious. It’s just the way he felt when they did come out, up until he busted them.

 

    And it would linger sometimes, and the next day he’d put on a shirt she’d bought him and she’d whistle at him and he’d just feel _good_ all day, or they’d meet up the following night after work at a bar halfway between the hospital and the paper, and she’d come up behind him and say ‘what’s your sign, baby?’, she’d put on a voice for it, and they would laugh, it was silly the way that The Cuffs were silly, but it still felt nice.

 

    There are times he really misses her, so bad he doesn’t know if there’s any getting past it. It doesn’t crush him the way it did the first few days, the first week or two when sometimes he’d dream about her and then wake up to a cold, empty room. Some nights he tossed his pillow off the bed so that he could have Pete sleep next to him safely, just so that when he woke up he wouldn’t be alone. So he’d wake up with a reminder of what he was living for. And he can’t go and pick Pete up from Nina’s parents wearing someone else’s cuffs. Not that he would have done wearing The Cuffs, either, not that it even matters.

 

    Victor hangs up the phone without having had any kind of a conversation, and Jack shifts forward in his seat. Watches him dial again, though the set of his shoulders is already resigned.

 

     “She’s not there?”

 

    “She didn’t get to the phone but I’m trying, okay? I don’t know if she’s there.”

 

    “She’s probably at work. Normal people have normal hours, don’t they?”

 

    “I only have one number…” He frowns.

 

     “I can’t… I can’t show up to pick my son up from my mother-in-law like this, she’ll think I was with someone, and at that point… it’s not even about the handcuffs, you know?” Jack says, desperation rising, cuffs jangling when he moves. He presses a hand over his mouth, trying to center himself, but it’s difficult.

 

    “Well, it’s kind of about the handcuffs.” Victor says, and how could Jack hope for him to really understand? Though he may as well try and explain, there’s nothing else to do.

 

     “It’s about my mother-in-law can’t think I’m just moving on with some… strange woman with handcuffs, who won’t be good stepmother material, and even if she was, it’s-- It looks like I’m moving on, and...”

 

     And he can’t move on. Not now, maybe not ever. It’s too hard to think about when it’s all this fresh. Maybe if he ever does, it’ll be to a strange woman with handcuffs. He doesn’t mind strange, and he definitely doesn’t mind handcuffs. But it wasn’t _about_ The Cuffs with Nina, not really, it was about how she’d make him feel _attractive_ , appreciated. It was about being chased instead of doing the chasing, and what it did for his self-esteem when she reminded him in no uncertain terms that he was the one for her, that she liked looking at him, that she thought he was sexy, however improbable that always seemed. The Cuffs were just a little part of it.

 

    “Or you’ve escaped an arrest.” Victor jokes. “Look… She wouldn’t think that, she knows you, it doesn’t… You’re dressed, your hair is… normal. You’re normal. You’re-- It doesn’t look like that. Nobody’s going to think you were with someone. Nobody’s going to see you in handcuffs! Because, I mean, and think about how it looks for me! Strange men in handcuffs exiting my apartment? No. Come on-- come on, I-- Eyeglass repair kit! Maybe I can use the little, little screwdriver, right? Maybe I can get that open.”

 

    “You think? Yeah, okay, let’s try that.” Jack leaps at the chance-- almost literally, and as it is he’s on his feet so fast his head spins. He’s quick to follow Victor up the stairs, ready to be rid of the cuffs and on with his day. Just having them on keeps ratcheting his anxiety up, and it makes enough sense, but he can’t rationalize it away.

 

    “It’s worth a shot. And look, if I can’t get them open--”

 

    “Don’t say if you can’t, we can’t do can’t.” He cuts Victor off. The cuffs need to come _off_. For both their sakes.

 

    “-- I owe you a drink?” Victor asks, shoulders hunching a little.

 

     “Yeah, if you can’t get these things off of me, I’ll need one.” Jack jangles them up not quite in Victor’s face, but his irritated frown fades quickly this time-- looks like there’s maybe two things they have in common to some degree, after all. “So… handcuffs, huh?”

 

    “They’re not mine.” Victor says, and Jack’s never _seen_ a face so pink.

 

    “Seeing you in a whole new light today, Doctor Ehrlich.” He says, maybe a little bit teasing.

 

    “And I would really appreciate it if no one found out about this--”

 

    “No one’s finding out about _this_.” He assures him. Victor folds in on himself a little, and Jack feels very slightly guilty.

 

     “I mean about those. Well, here we are. Eyeglass repair kit should be right where I always keep it. If I can perform surgery, I can do this, right?”

 

     Victor’s smile feels like false bravado, but Jack thinks that’s probably better than nothing at all.

 

    “Here’s hoping.”

 

    He offers his cuffed wrist when Victor comes out with the repair kit, to no avail. The cuffs slip around on his wrist, even when the both fumble to keep it all still.

 

    “You do this often?”

 

    “Ha ha.” Victor huffs a little. Jack hadn’t meant that one to be mean, really, just to be funny. He’s never been very good at funny.

  

    He leads Victor over to the bed, where he can brace his arm at least, and that makes it easier in turn to keep the cuffs stable. The feel of it is starting to get to him, the sound. It’s not arousal, really-- he can be grateful for that, at least. He’s not getting all hot under the collar just because he’s got a pair of handcuffs half on him, it’s just something. A little tug inside him, in some part of him too dumb to realize this is different. These aren’t The Cuffs, and Victor’s nothing at all like Nina, and even if the feeling’s not a sexy feeling, it’s a feeling he doesn’t need to be having here and now, a little whisper in the back of his head asking him how bad it would be if he had the other side on, how bad it would be if he just spent an hour like this. Not even doing anything, just… How bad would it be to feel like this for a while? Even if it’s not what it was.

 

    It’s not about sex, it’s about relaxing, about having the paralyzing matter of choice removed. If he was handcuffed, he wouldn’t really be able to do anything, so he wouldn’t have to worry about anything. And not having to worry is an attractive thought even when sex isn’t.

 

    Hell, he can’t even enjoy masturbating much, now. He’s not ready to think about anybody who isn’t Nina, thinking about Nina just makes him feel sick and sad and guilty and alone. Peter offered to get him some ‘inspirational viewing’-- or even reading, if viewing was out-- but that idea didn’t sit easy, either. He finds a lot of porn off-putting more than sexy, and he doesn’t really want to look at people who aren’t his wife, even if it was the kind of stuff he used to like just fine, back when it was a novel window on a brand new world, rather than a cheap and awkward-looking imitation of a thing he understood well. The point is, he thinks about nobody and nothing, when he does it, and it holds little appeal. So he can’t be surprised if the handcuffs that aren’t The Cuffs don’t inspire any sexual feeling. He just doesn’t know what to make of what they do inspire.

 

    Eventually, even with everything stable, Victor just sighs in defeat.

 

    “Guess you should stick to surgery and leave locksmithing to the professionals.”

 

    “Guess so.” Victor says, and that’s not right, no-- Jack hadn’t meant he should stop, he definitely hadn’t meant that. He hadn’t meant to add to his sense of defeat.

 

     “Ehrlich-- sorry.” He apologizes hastily. “No, you’re right, this is my fault, I slapped them on in the first place. I just… You know how it gets when you don’t sleep?”

 

    “Yeah.” Victor nods, and something in his expression grows a little gentler, and the voice in the back of Jack’s head tells him Victor’s exactly the kind of guy he should trust to cuff him, which is the most absurd thought he can imagine having, under the circumstances.

 

    “Well, I don’t sleep. Go on, try it one more time, it started to make a sound before.”

 

    Victor seems a little bolstered, at least, and so when Jack offers his braced wrist again, Victor gives it his best. His hand is cold where it rests against him as he keeps the cuff in place, his breath is warm when he leans in close. He looks as serious as he ever has in the ER.

 

     “Hey, look, I promise I’ll get you out of this. You won’t have to pick your kid up from your in-laws looking like a… weird sex freak.” Victor says, and he winces a little at ‘sex freak’, flushed as ever, maybe a little moreso.

 

    “Your words, not mine.” Jack says gently.

 

     “Well. I mean, like I said, they’re not mine. I mean--! Look, it’s really not… it’s not a big deal, I don’t even really like them that much.” He laughs, nervous, and doesn’t exactly say he’s not into them, doesn’t define ‘that much’.

 

    “It’s fine, really.”

 

    “No, it’s-- it’s just not what you think.”

 

    “I don’t think anything.” Jack shakes his head, but the mental image is there, Victor on this bed in handcuffs. For some reason he pictures him in scrubs, although that seems pretty unlikely.

 

    It’s a weird mental image, not because of the scrubs or the handcuffs or the fact that it’s Victor, but because it comes so devoid of any of the things he imagines you should feel when you’re imagining a colleague in that kind of situation, even if you are imagining him dressed at least. He’s not any more embarrassed with the mental image than without it, considering the whole damn situation. He’s not into it, he’s not put off by it. He thinks there’s a certain… potential _cute_ -ness, to Victor, with his face flushed and his hair mussed and his glasses askew, but it’s not _sexy_ -cute or anything, it’s the sort of ‘oh you helpless puppy’ kind of cute you feel for him when he’s getting beat up by ER patients again and you help pull him off the ground and fix the way his glasses sit.

 

    He’s never considered whether it was possible for Victor Ehrlich to _be_ sexy, but if it is, it’s not while handcuffed. It’s… it’s in the ER when he’s not getting beat up, maybe. When he’s taking charge of a situation and giving orders and saving lives.

 

    Maybe when he’s in surgery, but Jack wouldn’t really know what he’s like there. Like this, maybe. Focused and determined. Well, he had been focused and determined. The lack of progress has him throwing down his tiny screwdriver and just about collapsing in on himself, pulling his hair-- _hard_ , it looks like.

   

     “Come on. Breathe, okay? One more try, third time’s the charm.” Jack pats his back, trying to encourage just a little relaxation, at least. A little return to that focus and determination. At the very least, no more hair-pulling. He’s also trying to avoid picturing Victor in the handcuffs, because while it’s not embarrassing and it’s not arousing, this just seems like a singularly bad time to feel _jealous_ , all things considered. Jack’s trying to get _out_ of Victor’s handcuffs, not into them.

 

    “I’m going to try calling Roberta again.” Victor shoots to his feet so fast he nearly falls over. “She has to pick up, she-- Third time’s the charm, right?”

 

    Jack’s not so sure that’s true. He rescues the screwdriver from where it’s rolling around the bedspread, returning the eyeglasses repair kit to its home before following Victor downstairs.

 

    The third time is definitely not the charm with Roberta, judging by the way Victor hangs up without a word, the way his shoulders slump. He slowly looks up at Jack, with a hangdog trepidation.

 

    “There’s one other thing I can think of. But you’re going to hate it.” He warns.

 

    “Okay.”

 

     “But you won’t have to-- But it’ll be fine, I’m going to keep you out of it!” He’s quick to promise, with no explanation of just what Jack is going to hate. “You’ll hide in here, and I’ll just… have someone else bring me a key.”

 

    “You’re going to call someone else to bring you a key for a set of handcuffs?”

 

    “Yes.”

 

     “You’re right, I hate it.” Jack smiles wearily. It’s not his idea of a good time, but as long as he’s free of the cuffs to go and pick Pete up, whatever works... “If you know someone else who has handcuffs.”

 

     “It’s really not like that! I just-- I can call someone who can maybe get a key and get it over here. And you were never here. Or, you were, but you picked up the book and you left-- the book!”

 

    Jack fetches the book in question, glad for the reminder. If he’d gone through all this trouble and grief only to forget what he’d even come over for… He takes a seat at the table, watches the way Victor’s whole _being_ seems to pick up when he finally gets someone on the other end.

 

     “Hey, is Fiscus there?” He says, and cringes a little at the look and the shake of the head that Jack gives him. Of all the people he could have called? Wayne Fiscus is a good guy and he’s got a lot of heart, but he’s also got a big mouth and a pathological need to tell every joke that crosses his brain… not who Jack would pick for a delicate situation involving handcuffs.

 

    “This is not going to end well.” He cautions.

 

    “Yeah, I know. I said I’d keep you out of it.”

 

    “Yeah, well… good luck.” Jack shakes his head again, and Victor’s focus snaps to the telephone.

 

    “Oh, thank goodness, look-- this is an emergency, Fiscus, and you owe me! The carpet cleaning service? Uh-huh… That’s what I thought. And I wouldn’t be quick to erase that debt if I wasn’t in a real jam right now, so consider it your lucky day, because sterilizing an entire apartment doesn’t come cheap… Look… you’ve-- you’ve been around, right? You’ve had some wild exploits. You ever… You ever use handcuffs on a girl? And would you know where to maybe get a _key_ for a pair of handcuffs? This is serious!”

 

    Jack doesn’t need to be able to hear Fiscus to hear Fiscus… He just feels bad for Victor, it seems his dignity is taking a hit. And it’s not that he wants to let him twist in the wind alone, but it’d be worse for both of them if he didn’t let Victor handle it solo while he hides out… and it’s nice that Victor is worried about protecting his… reputation, he guesses? From whatever fallout there might be, when he’d gotten himself into this position just being stupid and messing around. Nice of him to insist on it so much, instead of hauling him out and telling the truth and hoping to be believed.

 

    “Roberta has the key. I tried calling her-- Keep your voice down! And I told you I was desperate, didn’t I? It’s not what you think… It’s not!” Victor stamps his foot emphatically, throws his whole body into it, head lolling back as he whines into the phone, and maybe it’s childish, but Jack doesn’t exactly blame him. “Come on! I’m in a real bind here, I can’t miss work because of this! Sit tight, yeah.”

 

    “I’m never going to hear the end of this.” Victor sighs, and if he were sitting down next to him at the table, Jack thinks he’d probably reach over to rub his back. “He thinks I have some mystery woman up here I’m two-timing with!”

 

    “When the rumors start going around, do you want me to say I heard your mystery woman was like… a supermodel?” Jack offers. He’s about as comically far from ‘supermodel’ as it gets, but hey… if it would help.

 

    “I’d rather people not think I was cheating on my girlfriend, but it could be worse.”

 

    “That’s the spirit.” Jack makes an awkward attempt at male camaraderie, a gesture which could almost be called a friendly shoulder-punch, except he’s pretty sure he’s had comatose patients who could deliver a better one. There’s something about the reminder of Roberta which makes him uncomfortable, and he doesn’t know why. He doesn’t really know her or anything, but from everything he’s heard Victor say, she seems nice.

 

    _Highly_ inappropriate jealousy, maybe, because Victor has a girlfriend with handcuffs, and at the moment Jack can’t even imagine being with someone, and he hasn’t been handcuffed in a long time.

 

    Well, until today, but this doesn’t count.

 

    “And the thing with the handcuffs isn’t--” Victor starts again.

 

    “Sure. It’s-- I’m not going to say anything about it to anyone.”

 

     “Because I know the kinds of things people say about me!” Victor says in a rush, and Jack _aches_ at the way he says it. “I don’t mean about this, except they’re probably going to start, but in general! I mean, I always have. I was just… one of those kids people always had an opinion on. I’ve just always known the kinds of things… I mean I hear things.”

 

    “People don’t talk about you now, though-- okay, well, not more than anybody else, though. I mean… they like you.” He presses. People do talk sometimes, sure… inasmuch as everyone talks about everyone, people call Victor clumsy or sometimes piggish, insensitive. Weird, some people call him weird. Even Peter did at first, once or twice, a lot of people said things at first and don’t say them now, but it doesn’t mean they have any personal feeling about it, mostly.

 

    After all, people call Kiley insensitive, too. That’s different, really-- Kiley _is_ , he’s more than insensitive. Not like Victor, who isn’t a bigot, and who doesn’t even seem to mean the things he says, when he does say things about women. And sure, it would be better for everyone if he didn’t say them, but he doesn’t deserve to be singled out, when most of the guys do the same...

 

    “Sure. But when this gets around…” Victor groans. “Let’s talk about anything other than the handcuffs.”

 

    “They’re kind of weighing on my mind at the moment, but shoot. I could use a distraction.” Jack rattles them.

 

    “You ever seen Endless Summer?” Victor asks, and there’s a fragility to the eagerness with which he asks that Jack doesn’t want to break.

 

    “Tell me about it.” Jack smiles.

 

     Victor does, and Jack’s never devoted any thought whatsoever to surfing before, but Victor is… evocative, and passionate, quasi-spiritual. At times he seems to be quoting the narration verbatim, at other times just describing the action.

 

     He’s just talking about the guys riding their boards down the sand dunes towards the beach itself, a joyous reverence ebbing and flowing in his tone, when there’s a knock at the door.

 

    “Kitchen, hide-- COMING!” He shouts, and technically they’re _in_ the kitchen, but Jack gets the hint. He makes sure he and the book are back from where Fiscus might see him through the open entryway.

 

    “Okay, I can explain.” He can hear Fiscus saying, and what _he_ needs to explain in this situation, Jack can’t quite imagine. “See, when you said Roberta had the key but it wasn’t what I thought, but you couldn’t come to work until you could _get_ a key--”

 

    “Where is the key?”

 

    “I have it, I have it.”

 

    “Where’s the key, Fiscus?”

 

    “You’re not in handcuffs.” He says bluntly, and Jack’s really not sure if it’s comforting or disconcerting to think he’s not the only person imagining Victor in handcuffs today.

 

    “Where is the key?” Victor presses.

 

    “I thought you’d be in them, that’s why I brought a camera. So you _do_ have another woman here.”

 

    Camera. He has a camera? Even if the camera’s only part of a joke and he wasn’t really going to use it, the fact that he has one sends a spike of anxiety through Jack, because if he’s found _hiding_ , it looks a lot worse than if he’s just there lounging around waiting to get the whole innocent mistake cleared up, why had he let Victor hide him? Is it too late to gnaw off his own arm?

 

    “No, I don’t-- Fiscus, you can’t go in my room!”

 

   “Oh-- Right… No photography. You can’t have me over to do this for you and not introduce me to your lady friend.”

 

    “My lady friend isn’t here. Where’s the key?”

 

     Jack hears the thunder of footsteps going up the stairs, and then muffled, indistinct voices as Victor shouts at Fiscus and Fiscus replies more calmly. He can’t make the words out, until they come back down.

 

    “Okay, seriously, where do you have her? Bathroom?” Fiscus asks.

 

    Oh. He should have hidden in the bathroom. At least then he could have locked the door.

 

    “Give me the key, Fiscus!” Victor sounds more agitated than ever.

 

    “Come on, Victor, look, you can get her covered up, I’m not trying to sneak a peek or anything, I just want to meet her!”

 

    “Give-- give me the-- give it, give it!”

 

    Jack can hear the scuffling, and that tears it, in the end. He steps out into the doorway with a sigh. The truth may be dumb and embarrassing, but not incriminating.

 

     “Give him the key, Fiscus.” He says.

 

    “Jack!” Fiscus greets, and he certainly doesn’t look like he requires an explanation, but not because he’s assumed anything.

 

    “It’s not what it looks like.” Victor says quickly.

 

    “It looks like a fully dressed man from work is in your kitchen.” Fiscus blinks. “Although yes, the handcuffs are a little suspicious.”

 

    “The handcuffs-- Nothing weird happened with the handcuffs!” Poor Victor looks like he’s on the verge of passing out, red in the face and puffing for breath a little, and beyond mere agitation.

 

    “No, I know. Jack Morrison’s a man of taste.”

 

    “Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?”

 

     “Ehrlich, a hand here?” Jack asks, waving an arm. Maybe if they’re not on a first name basis here, it’s not suspicious. Maybe. He doesn’t really know, it’s a pretty new situation.

 

     Victor hurries over, one hand briefly taking his in order to get him angled correctly, touch soothingly cool. Brief, but pleasant enough. The lock clicks open, and Victor catches the cuffs when they drop from their previous spot locked onto Jack.

 

     “Thanks.” He flashes Victor a small smile.

 

    “Do you need-- I mean, when--” Victor stammers. “Not that-- I mean, the cuffs aren’t mine!”

 

    None of that made a particular amount of sense, but Jack lets that go. Victor’s had a long day, and he still has to get back to it-- didn’t wind up getting much chance to rest at home before having to return to work to assist Craig and spend the night on call.

 

     “Just need to grab that book and get out of here.” He says, though now he’s stuck thinking about how he can make this lack of rest up to him. “You might want to stick to rope in the future-- no keys to lose. And if you can’t undo the knot, you know where you can borrow trauma shears.”

 

     With that, he waves goodbye from the door, book tucked under one arm and Fiscus tucked under the other.

 

    “Okay, but they’re not--” Victor begins, halfway to the door after them, and frozen in his tracks. Eventually, he lifts his hand as if half in a fog, and waves back, smiling weakly when Jack smiles at him.

 

    “So what was that?” Fiscus asks, as they head out.

 

    “What was what?”

 

    “You know. You handcuffed in Victor Ehrlich’s apartment. Didn’t you go over there to pick up a book?”

 

    Jack does not point out that Fiscus should have been the one to get it. A wise man probably said something about picking your battles once…

 

    “The handcuffs were down in his couch. He says they’re not his--”

 

    “Well they’re not mine. Although--”

 

    “Can it.” Jack laughs. “No, I found them in his couch and I was just messing around with them while he was finding that book, and then he tells me since they’re not his, he doesn’t have the key.”

 

    “Ah. Well that makes sense.” Fiscus nods, and it doesn’t, not really, but at least it’s the truth.


End file.
